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Old 09-15-2016, 09:45 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by Kountrykamper View Post
I don't lock ours for that reason. I would rather replace a hose or tire chalk than deal with the damage of a thief. I figure if they look in ours they are going to be disappointed at what they find. Heck I don't lock the camper most of the time because I would rather they take my pots and pans than destroy my door. If they want in they are going to get in and don't care what they damage in the process.

I cant stand are a thief and have no use for them.
This my thinking, on all accounts.
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Old 09-15-2016, 10:14 AM   #22
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Art when I zoom in on the pictures of the remaining lock, to me, it looks like intense wear from the lock swinging back and forth. The hasp and lock both have wear marks. The other picture looks a bit strange to me as to what tool the thief would have used. The only way I could imagine him getting it done so quietly is with a very large bolt cutter and that hasp, to me, doesn't look like it is cut that way.

Maybe I am missing something, not the first time for sure, but I'm wondering if it might not have been theft attempt but something else.
I see what looks like a lot of wear on hasp , like it was swinging around also . Did someone enlarge the hasp holes and use a hefty lock ? The hasp holes only will take a small , I think it is 1/4 lock shackle . Sorry for whatever the cause of this on your trailer . Pat
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Old 09-15-2016, 12:05 PM   #23
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Somewhere along I-5, between O'Neill Regional Park and Livermore, CA, most likely at the Rest Stop at the top of the Grapevine, someone nearly broke into our front box, on Monday, Sept. 12, 2016.

They cut through the hasp, and removed the padlock on the driver's side, and were almost through the hasp on the passenger side, see photos. If this was at the top of the Grapevine, we were inside the trailer having lunch, with the door open! Kathy thought she heard something, but I didn't.

I haven't heard about the security of the front box being a problem for other Escape owners, so I'm currently thinking that I'll try to get the same hasps used on Escapes; rather than looking for a harder to break into hasp that would be unlikely to match the front box pop rivet hole pattern.
sorry for the experience...if they did this while you were in the trailer that would be bold and perhaps a bit dangerous if confronted...
IMHO better locks and hasps ain't going to stop a thief with a crowbar as long as the hasp is mounted to fiberglass with just rivets..especially if they are aluminum rivets and if the inside of the fiberglass lid/enclosure is not backed with metal for the rivets to go thru.....really depends on where the incident occurs and whether the thief is concerned about noise in the methods they use. These days heavy duty battery powered tools can make quick work of most any material.
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Old 09-15-2016, 12:10 PM   #24
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Looking back at the pictures posted on page 1, I agree that the wear patterns on the hasps seem more consistent with having a big lock swinging back and forth during travelling than from a burglary attempt. I use a much smaller lock on mine and there is no wear at all on the hasp.
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Old 09-15-2016, 12:11 PM   #25
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One of the reasons we have a window over the bed in our 21.
Jack
Yes, we briefly wished we'd gotten the optional front window after we saw the damage. But then we realized that we wouldn't have bothered to open the shield during a quick stop for lunch, unless there were a view, so we still wouldn't have seen anything.
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Old 09-15-2016, 12:24 PM   #26
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Looking at the pics of the damage my first thoughts were that didn't look like it had been cut, but was from wear. So I'd have to concur with the assessment it was caused by the motion of the large lock over time. The answer as to whether it was caused by theft or damage is if the removed lock was right there. Thieves don't cut off locks and take off with them they just drop them. If the lock wasn't there and recovered it fell off in transit from wear and is laying somewhere along the highway.
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Old 09-15-2016, 01:27 PM   #27
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Art when I zoom in on the pictures of the remaining lock, to me, it looks like intense wear from the lock swinging back and forth. The hasp and lock both have wear marks. The other picture looks a bit strange to me as to what tool the thief would have used. The only way I could imagine him getting it done so quietly is with a very large bolt cutter and that hasp, to me, doesn't look like it is cut that way.

Maybe I am missing something, not the first time for sure, but I'm wondering if it might not have been theft attempt but something else.
I looked again at both hasps. The erosion of the hasp is symmetrical, and occurs on both hasps, so your suggestion of wear from a swinging lock is probably correct. Given that wear, a diagonal cutter could have probably gone through the remaining metal with little or no sound.

I find it hard to believe that the broken hasp could have had one side bent about 90 deg. by just a swinging padlock, with no human intervention with a pliers or other tool. However, a possibility that I can't rule out, is that on a sharp turn the back corner of our Jeep Grand Cherokee can hit the box near the lock (I've done that at least once) – when I return it to the storage yard, I may try a sharp turn with Kathy watching to see where it would hit and to keep me from actually hitting, to see if that could have bent the hasp.

The Master Padlocks weigh only 1.3 oz, each, and have a small hardened steel shackle of about 5/32" diameter. But this is apparently sufficient to nearly wear through the hasp over about 12,000 miles. It looks like we have to go from a small to a tiny lock, or no lock.

The suggestion of not locking the box has some appeal [but it goes against the grain for someone who has spent most of his life living in cities – it would be a return to high school days in a small town in northwestern Minnesota where my parents didn't lock our house even when gone on a month-long vacation]: it would provide more convenient access to the contents, and most important – the value of the $700 box greatly exceeds the value of what we keep in it; except when we're in camp – then I put the weight distribution hitch, bars, and ball-drawbar in the box, resulting in a total value that is similar to that of the box. [This weight exceeds the 100 lb limit, but it is a static load that I figure is ok. When the trailer is moving, all that heavy stuff is removed from the box.]

So at least some of the problem was 'normal' wear, and perhaps no bad guy was encountered.
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Old 09-15-2016, 02:07 PM   #28
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My truck rear corner would meet the box right at the corner bend. Since your tow is a bit narrower, the rear corner hitting the lock (inside the bend on the front surface) during a sharp turn isn't outside the realm of possibility.

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Old 09-15-2016, 03:43 PM   #29
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I once had a seasoned camper owner with many years experience tell me "locks are for honest people". It makes more sense now than it did when I was much younger.
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Old 09-15-2016, 04:51 PM   #30
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I'm pretty amazed at the amount of wear on the corner of the padlock itself (photo #2). That padlock housing is made of some some pretty tough metal, and if it has worn that much, I'm sure it has been wearing down whatever softer metal it has come in contact with - as evidenced by all the abrasions on the hasp.
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Old 09-15-2016, 05:14 PM   #31
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I looked again at both hasps. The erosion of the hasp is symmetrical, and occurs on both hasps, so your suggestion of wear from a swinging lock is probably correct. Given that wear, a diagonal cutter could have probably gone through the remaining metal with little or no sound.
I had only considered possible locks earlier, and not looked at the hasp wear in detail. The completely failed hasp loop looks like all wear and not a cut to me, but that's just a guess from a photo.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Art M. View Post
I find it hard to believe that the broken hasp could have had one side bent about 90 deg. by just a swinging padlock, with no human intervention with a pliers or other tool. However, a possibility that I can't rule out, is that on a sharp turn the back corner of our Jeep Grand Cherokee can hit the box near the lock (I've done that at least once) – when I return it to the storage yard, I may try a sharp turn with Kathy watching to see where it would hit and to keep me from actually hitting, to see if that could have bent the hasp.
I think hitting the lock after the hasp loop was almost worn through is a reasonable possible explanation.

When checking for clearance, keep in mind that there is a tightest angle you can get to in forward motion (just crank the tug wheel all the way over and slowly drive forward until it nearly touches or it stops getting tighter), but you can always fully jackknife in reverse.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Art M. View Post
The Master Padlocks weigh only 1.3 oz, each, and have a small hardened steel shackle of about 5/32" diameter. But this is apparently sufficient to nearly wear through the hasp over about 12,000 miles. It looks like we have to go from a small to a tiny lock, or no lock.
A tiny lock makes sense to me. The shackle of even a quite small lock would be more difficult to saw through than the hasp loop, so the hasp is still the weak link. A very small lock is really easy to snip with bolt cutters, but if someone is prowling around your trailer with bolt cutters, they're probably getting into your storage box regardless of your lock choice.
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Old 09-15-2016, 06:30 PM   #32
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We'll try unlocked while traveling, so we don't wear out the remains of the passenger side hasp. We'll lock that side in camp, when the box contains hitch parts plus a pair of strap-on McKesh mirrors, that I forgot to list in the previous comments, plus a bunch of other low-value stuff. This way, we can postpone obtaining a new set of latches from Escape.

We just checked clearance between the Jeep and the box. I began the tightest U-Turn I could, and was surprised to complete it in the street in front of our house. We were at least 2-3" clear of contact between the vehicles, so it seems unlikely that we broke off a padlock that way. We rarely back up at rest stops or refueling stations (calling it a gas station doesn't make sense with a diesel), so were unlikely to achieve more extreme jack-knife angles.
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Old 09-15-2016, 06:40 PM   #33
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Using my highly developed investigatory skills, along with a little BS thrown in, I have determined that this in fact was an attempted break-in.

The normal wear marks would only be on the top of the hole in the hasp, with just scuffs on the side parts at best. You can clearly see these marks just behind the suspected cut marks, on both hasps.

Where the one hasp is completely severed, there are definite angle "pinch" marks indicating being cut.

On the other one, the point where it is just about through the hasp, is on an angle forward, whereas the hasp would generally hang straight down. This looks like someone with not to sharp of cutters did not make quite make the cut through.

I think the thief was likely scared off as Art finished his yummy lunch and let out a loud fart. The thief heard this thinking it was the growl of a big dog, and headed for the hills.

Case closed!
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Old 09-15-2016, 06:50 PM   #34
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We'll try unlocked while traveling, so we don't wear out the remains of the passenger side hasp. We'll lock that side in camp, when the box contains hitch parts plus a pair of strap-on McKesh mirrors, that I forgot to list in the previous comments, plus a bunch of other low-value stuff. This way, we can postpone obtaining a new set of latches from Escape.
For what it's worth, when our hasp (staple) was broken, we wired it shut while underway. (I think we used some heavy twist ties that had been part of the packaging on a water hose.) Also, the locks we have used (before and now) are for keeping the hasp fastened, rather than keeping someone out.

My earlier comment about our lock being smaller than yours was not a criticism of your lock size; it was just to point out that even a smaller lock damaged (broke) the staple on our hasp - in our case because of ongoing vibration of the box.

And, when we finally decided we had nailed down all of the causes (effects?) of our box vibration, we contacted ETI and they sent us replacement hasps. (If we lived closer to Chilliwack, we'd've let them troubleshoot the situation; but from Texas we knew our best bet was to work on it ourselves.)
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Old 09-15-2016, 09:57 PM   #35
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Case closed!
Who needs the cops when we have a forum member gifted with such amazing deductive powers?
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Old 09-15-2016, 10:08 PM   #36
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Who needs the cops when we have a forum member gifted with such amazing deductive powers?
Did you mean imaginary powers?
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Old 09-16-2016, 12:35 AM   #37
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If you want to avoid the swinging-padlock issue, and don't need a highly secure lock, you might find a locking hasp to fit.


Another option to the standard hasp might be a locking version of the external latch used on tilting truck hoods and Jeep hoods.
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Old 09-16-2016, 07:15 AM   #38
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If you want to avoid the swinging-padlock issue, and don't need a highly secure lock, you might find a locking hasp to fit.


Another option to the standard hasp might be a locking version of the external latch used on tilting truck hoods and Jeep hoods.
The problem with this type of hasp is that it does not have the adjustable cam action to get the lid to fit snugly. The front boxes are not built so precisely that initial and subsequent hasp adjustments wouldn't be required.
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Old 09-16-2016, 12:38 PM   #39
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The problem with this type of hasp is that it does not have the adjustable cam action to get the lid to fit snugly.
Good point.
I was thinking of a plain hasp, and the padlock provision is like a plain hasp, but the Escape latches are the adjustable pull-down type, as they should be. The truck/Jeep hood latches work this way, too; they are normally adjustable, and usually have coil springs or rubber springing elements as well.
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Old 09-16-2016, 09:01 PM   #40
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This my thinking, on all accounts.


Same here!
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